Woven in Moonlight (Woven in Moonlight #1)(93)

And in a way, I have.

Traitor. Rat.

I stumble toward the condesa, Tamaya at my heels. Illustrian fighters circle us, forming a protective barrier against the onslaught. I know each of them by name. I’ve trained and slept and lived alongside them at the keep. And now they follow Catalina—the real royal. Their friend. I was nothing to them. Nothing but a standin, a fake.

My hands are sticky with blood. I manage to latch onto her arms. “Call them off! Catalina, do it!”

She jerks back. “What?”

“Look around you!” I scream. “This isn’t you—stop them.”

“You sent me the location!” Her voice quavers. “I got your message. This is what you wanted …”

“I killed Atoc.” I squeeze her arms as I search for the gem. She’s not wearing it, but I know it must be somewhere on her. “No one else has to die. Give me the Estrella—we have to destroy it.”

“Destroy it?” She looks at the princesa, disappointment carved into her features. “Is this about her? You still want her on the throne?”

“She’s not your enemy.”

“You both are!” she yells, charging, her sword raised.

I jump away from her jab. We might have been training. Except this is a stronger Catalina than I remember. She’s enraged and hurt, governed by her emotions. They drive her every move. Tamaya keeps behind me.

“Ximena!” Rumi yells from somewhere in the crowd. He tosses me a sword, and I catch the handle in time to block Catalina’s next thrust. She attacks with all the rage of the sun. Each of her moves leaves me shaking. Sweat drops down my back.

I’m out of practice, out of shape. My limbs raw and burning as if on fire. But that doesn’t matter. Catalina fights as if reading out of a book. By the rules, without any variation—but she’s upset, and her moves become erratic. Frantic jabs that slice air and not flesh. She cries out in frustration with every missed opportunity.

I block her attack and slam the heel of my boot onto her toes. She squeals and drops her sword. I raise the blade and keep it level with her heart.

The anaconda coils at my side, ready to pounce.

“Not her,” I say sharply.

Illustrians swarm behind the condesa, arrows notched and ready to fly. I sense, rather than see, the Llacsan rebels line up behind the princesa and me. The whistling from their slingshots spinning in the air tears through the cloudless blue sky.

The ghost army stands ready to strike. There are so few of us left. Cut down by their indestructible force. No one will survive against the spirits.

Catalina can give the order to attack, but it will only take me seconds to kill her.

Madre de Luna. We’re all going to destroy one another. Unless I can make Catalina see reason.

“Catalina, please. Stop this before it’s too late,” I say softly. “Por favor.”

“I won’t ever accept anything less than the throne. Pick up your weapon and finish this,” Catalina snaps. “Nobody move. This is between Ximena and me. Pick up your blade!”

I shake my head. “There’s a better way. For all of us.”

Catalina’s eyes flicker past my shoulder. Her voice is oddly flat. “I never thought I’d live to see the day you’d want a Llacsan on the throne.”

“I want the right person on the throne. Someone who wants a united Inkasisa.”

“Condesa,” Tamaya says. “You will be equal and treated with the respect you deserve. I’m not my brother, and I want what’s best for all—”

“Stop talking,” Catalina says impatiently. She turns to me. “I don’t know who you are anymore. What about our people? My parents? Your parents? You’re disgracing their memory.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But I’m doing this for all of Inkasisa.”

Catalina is crying now. “Don’t talk about Inkasisa—this is about you and me. We’ve been friends for ten years. This is a betrayal.”

That stings. It’s so much more than our friendship. But I’m out of words. I can only beg. “Give Princesa Tamaya a chance. For me.”

“Why don’t you give me a chance?” Catalina asks. She digs into her pocket and pulls out a thick silver bracelet. The ametrine gem sparkles in the sunlight, half amethyst, half citrine. The Llacsan rebels gasp behind me. The Illustrians tense, waiting for the condesa’s signal. I can’t drag my eyes away from the cuff. I lunge at her.

The Llacsans launch their rocks—

The Illustrians shoot their arrows—

The ghost army utters a high, hair-raising shriek—

Catalina cries out as we crash to the ground. Her hand holding the Estrella knocks against the stone. It rolls out of her reach—

I kick the condesa away and scoop up the bracelet. It’s as cold as a corpse. I push through the crowd, looking for a crack in the earth. Catalina is screaming something from behind me. But I ignore her, ignore the fighting, the ghosts on their murdering rampage. I find what I’m looking for.

A hole in the earth that leads down, down, down to fire and heat, the center of the world.

I stop at the edge, holding my hand over the gulf.

“Ximena,” Catalina says. “Don’t.”

A noise like a rushing river envelopes me. I can’t hear anything except the howling in my head, in my heart. The cuff is heavy, a block of ice. I know the moment I drop it, the moment it touches the heat of the earth, it’ll be gone forever.